She held my wrist kindly with her gnarled, strong and soft fingers, and demanded, "Keep your pinkies straight! Straight! Straight! Straight!" to the beat of my pinky fingers striking the piano keys over and over. This bent-over woman in her nineties was asking so much focus and effort that the music in front of me swam through my tears of exasperation.
Pinkies are just not meant to operate independently from their sisters, the ring fingers, I grumbled to myself. The pinky finger cannot simply strike a piano key, let alone rapidly switch with the ring finger repeatedly to make the piano's strings trill, like a little soldier banging his head against a flat piece of ivory. Over and over again. Banging their little heads.
Speaking of which, I felt like banging my head against the piano's music stand.
The bent-over woman in her nineties was Edith Reed, and she was not only a surprisingly intense piano teacher, but also woke up at 5 am every morning to walk five miles. And she was ninety-three, did I mention that? And then, she gardened for four hours every day before her first piano students knocked on her door. And she was ninety-three years old.
At home, every day after school, I shot lasers and Jedi mind powers through my eyes towards my pinky fingers, willing them to lift up and strike down. They trembled and shuddered but stayed curled. After one week, my willpower dribbled out onto the floor and I faced the truth: my hands just couldn't cut it. I nearly gave up.
But then, from somewhere deep inside, mostly likely from the profound fear of facing my teacher with no progress to show for myself, I tried for another week. And one afternoon, my pinkies triumphed. Extended straight as sticks, they struck the keys beneath them firmly, over and over again.
This story falls somewhere between "prissy piano girl's hardest moment in life is learning to use her pinkies" and "boring piano lesson story," but there's a profound lesson contained here that gives me strength to this day. The lesson is that during the entire week and a half that nothing seemed to be improving, and my pinkies literally looked and acted the same, something was actually improving. I don't know what it was. It is a mystery. Perhaps as I stared at my immobile pinkies, my willpower grew. Perhaps my muscles grew, unbeknownst to me. Perhaps I subconsciously weeded out all the ineffective muscle techniques and narrowed it down to the right muscles in the end. I don't know.
All of us have many moments when we see no progress, and it's frustrating. Maybe you've tried flirting with people 100 times and never had the courage to actually open your mouth. Maybe you've had a dozen relationships that ended poorly. Maybe you've tried to be kinder to your mother for the last month but fallen back on old habits of being crabby ten times for every one time you succeed. Maybe you've tried to start going to the gym and made it for one week but then missed a whole summer. Maybe you have any number of hopes and dreams that you'd like to work towards, but you keep going back to the same lame old hobbies.
If any of those things sound familiar (and they are all familiar to me), just remember the pinky fingers. Remember that the struggling little guys will get stronger. The trying, the not-giving-up, the diligentness, the wanting, the wanting of something good. Let yourself pass through the pain of never seeing any progress because one day, you'll realize you are stronger for the trying.*
Also, you should all watch this clip from Samurai Jack--an early 2000's cartoon. In one episode (link here), he wants to be like the flying monkeys in the forest. So he carries a boulder through the forest for months, so that when he removes the boulder, he can basically float, and jump high like the flying monkeys. One day, we will cut all our boulders loose and we will fly.
*Another post coming soon on the exact opposite skill: accepting where you are, rather than trying to change or improve. I think there's a time and a season for improvement and for acceptance.
Pinkies are just not meant to operate independently from their sisters, the ring fingers, I grumbled to myself. The pinky finger cannot simply strike a piano key, let alone rapidly switch with the ring finger repeatedly to make the piano's strings trill, like a little soldier banging his head against a flat piece of ivory. Over and over again. Banging their little heads.
Speaking of which, I felt like banging my head against the piano's music stand.
The bent-over woman in her nineties was Edith Reed, and she was not only a surprisingly intense piano teacher, but also woke up at 5 am every morning to walk five miles. And she was ninety-three, did I mention that? And then, she gardened for four hours every day before her first piano students knocked on her door. And she was ninety-three years old.
At home, every day after school, I shot lasers and Jedi mind powers through my eyes towards my pinky fingers, willing them to lift up and strike down. They trembled and shuddered but stayed curled. After one week, my willpower dribbled out onto the floor and I faced the truth: my hands just couldn't cut it. I nearly gave up.
But then, from somewhere deep inside, mostly likely from the profound fear of facing my teacher with no progress to show for myself, I tried for another week. And one afternoon, my pinkies triumphed. Extended straight as sticks, they struck the keys beneath them firmly, over and over again.
This story falls somewhere between "prissy piano girl's hardest moment in life is learning to use her pinkies" and "boring piano lesson story," but there's a profound lesson contained here that gives me strength to this day. The lesson is that during the entire week and a half that nothing seemed to be improving, and my pinkies literally looked and acted the same, something was actually improving. I don't know what it was. It is a mystery. Perhaps as I stared at my immobile pinkies, my willpower grew. Perhaps my muscles grew, unbeknownst to me. Perhaps I subconsciously weeded out all the ineffective muscle techniques and narrowed it down to the right muscles in the end. I don't know.
All of us have many moments when we see no progress, and it's frustrating. Maybe you've tried flirting with people 100 times and never had the courage to actually open your mouth. Maybe you've had a dozen relationships that ended poorly. Maybe you've tried to be kinder to your mother for the last month but fallen back on old habits of being crabby ten times for every one time you succeed. Maybe you've tried to start going to the gym and made it for one week but then missed a whole summer. Maybe you have any number of hopes and dreams that you'd like to work towards, but you keep going back to the same lame old hobbies.
If any of those things sound familiar (and they are all familiar to me), just remember the pinky fingers. Remember that the struggling little guys will get stronger. The trying, the not-giving-up, the diligentness, the wanting, the wanting of something good. Let yourself pass through the pain of never seeing any progress because one day, you'll realize you are stronger for the trying.*
Also, you should all watch this clip from Samurai Jack--an early 2000's cartoon. In one episode (link here), he wants to be like the flying monkeys in the forest. So he carries a boulder through the forest for months, so that when he removes the boulder, he can basically float, and jump high like the flying monkeys. One day, we will cut all our boulders loose and we will fly.
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| Look it's me, playing the piano! |
*Another post coming soon on the exact opposite skill: accepting where you are, rather than trying to change or improve. I think there's a time and a season for improvement and for acceptance.
This is lovely. It reminds me of the story about the egg hatching.
ReplyDeleteAhem: there once was a huge array of eggs. Then, one day, one of the eggs hatched. It was a miracle! That egg alone among all its brethren was successful; it had achieved such success overnight. Then a few more days passed, and another egg hatched, then another. It appeared as though the eggs were suddenly bursting upon success, when in fact the opposite was true: it took time for the chicks inside to develo. All that development was slow and done privately behind the eggshell screen, and when hatching finally came, it was tough. So, success' outcomes may be visible, but their inputs are often invisible to all but those actually doing the work.
Wow, what an honest, touching essay that validates life experiences. I love what you wrote here, "just remember the pinky fingers. Remember that the struggling little guys will get stronger. The trying, the not-giving-up, the diligentness, the wanting, the wanting of something good. Let yourself pass through the pain of never seeing any progress because one day, you'll realize you are stronger for the trying."
ReplyDeleteGreat little story about pinkies. I hope this can work for my pinky toes.
ReplyDeleteI love this. Sometimes persistent failure give me the hunger I need to accomplish something :)
ReplyDeleteI love this. Sometimes persistent failure give me the hunger I need to accomplish something :)
ReplyDelete